Aussie Finch Forum

My normal response would be as much as your birds need plus more.
I still stand by that but two interesting fledgings recently made me think about it.
The first are a pair of Cordons in an aviary that were fed no live food,just dry seed and chitted seed
and the pair put 4 healthy chicks up on the perch direct from fledging.
The second pair are Orange Cheeks, they wintered in an indoor aviary with some other species.
To keep them slim only dry seed mix was fed, apart from an unfortunate spider no live food
was available yet they actually went to nest(unknown to me) and put a chick on the perch.
I would presume if livefood was available the number of chicks would have most likely be greater.
The point of all this is if a pair want to breed bad enough then they will try and try.

The fact that the birds are in good health is obviously the most important factor here.

Just talking to my mate, he told me that due family commitments he stopped feeding livefood to all of his finches and fed an austerity diet virtually just seed for weeks.
He went to his aviaries to find young crimsons fledged and his red eared firetails have all got bent tails.
We discussed maybe his birds are too fat and content to breed as the last two seasons have been very poor so maybe the warmer wet Spring has set them off to breed with no livefood and other stimulants. Maybe we over feed our birds who knows.

Maybe we're underestimating how many edible insects are actually getting into our aviaries every day.

A good friend of mine has stopped feeding live food after 40 years the reason is he's getting lots of young out just feeding sprouted seed and good quality egg and biscuit mix maybe craig is right we maybe over feeding our birds, it will be interesting to see how many cordons , he get out with no live food, Diamonds, Longtails, parrot finches, orange breasts stars parsons masks Double bars are just a few that he breeds